The Grand Hyatt Singaporehas opened a swank new spa, called Damai, which means "peace" in Malay and Indonesian.
Above is an image of the couples' treatment room. Kinky. Like the rest of the hotel, the spa's decor features carved stone artwork and lots of illuminated wood. The hotel calls it a:
A modern lifestyle club guiding you on a personal journey to discover your own path to peace, serenity, and complete well being.
We don't know if it's the verbose marketing copy, but we're already half-asleep. The spa fuses ancient Chinese, Malay, and European treatment and meditation techniques into its services. Yup, we're almost on our way to sleepland but this bit perks us up.
One would assume that all that self-improvement comes with a price tag. But at $75 Singapore dollars for a half-hour massage (about $50 USD), we can feel at peace with our spirits and our wallets.
With plenty of women here at HotelChatter, we're not afraid of a women-only floor in a hotel: we embrace it. Thumbs up to Singapore's boutique Naumi Hotel who recently launched their dedicated ladies-only floor, saying they're giving travelin' gals "a sense of security and privacy in luxurious surroundings".
Most of the guests on the women's floor are either businesswomen or shoppers, and it's been 80% full since it opened. As well as men being banned from this zone, there are a few treats for the women who stay here including:
In-room cosmetics such as make-up remover, toner and aromatherapy products from all-natural Australian brand Aesop and pink and gray flowery wallpaper.
Sounds good to us. Naumi currently has a City Escapes rate of S$290 (just over US$200) a night--that's valid whether you're on the ladies-only floor or not, so no complaints please, men. Oh, and by the way: it's got an infinity pool you could really get to love.
Today we're hotel-chatting with Louis Sailer, General Manager of the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore. This month the hotel is gearing up for the Formula 1 Grand Prix on September 28 which will speed by the hotel on its course. The race is going to be the world's first night-time race and will surely be a sight to see. But if you can't get to Singapore later this month, the Fullerton is still going to be there. In fact, it's been there since 1928 but not as a hotel. Keep reading to find out more.
Here's one for all you motorheads out there. You probably knew even before we did that 2008 sees the Formula One return to Singapore, and on top of that it's going to be the world's first night-time F1 Grand Prix.
The real experts also know it's one of just three anti-clockwise circuits out there, which is bound to make it even more exciting (or at least trickier).
So you've got a few choices. Slum it with the rest of the race watchers or shell out some cash and stay at the fancy Fullerton Hotel, which has an F1 Experience package going for S$2000 (US$1450) a night, with a minimum stay of four nights from September 25-29.
F1 lovers at the Fullerton will get access to an F1 dedicated champagne and cocktail lounge on qualifying day and race day too, along with exclusive access to the rooftop viewing platform overlooking the track.
A few other freebies are thrown in: champagne in your room when you arrive, WiFi, daily champagne breakfast and a complimentary minibar--but don't get too excited since that doesn't include the alcohol.
If staying in hotels where artists have gone wild in the design process is your thing, then Budget Travel has just published the ideal art hotel round-up for you. Their list features hotels across three continents that have just one thing in common: every room is a grand work of art where you should expect the unexpected.
In the Netherlands, for example, the St Christopher's at the Winston, has now retreated from its previously far, far out art that included animal corpses to room designs with highly energetic walls and paintings (pictured above)--interesting to look at, but we're not sure if we could get any sleep.
All across Asia, hoteliers are rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of more and more tourists landing in their hotel rooms. Take India as an example: prices and demand for upscale hotel rooms are both rising, and figures just released show that in 2006, room rates rose by a huge 40%.
That means that large chains like Marriott, Hilton, Four Seasons and Shangri-La are all planning big expansions throughout India. Marriott, for example, is planning to add another 15 hotels in the next couple of years, and like most chains is looking at cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kerala.
But further east in Thailand, hotels are looking at other ways to increase their exposure and income. The Millennium Hilton Bangkok, for example, has something interesting starting up at the end of the month. It's providing its Grand Ballroom as the venue for a performance by the British Theatre Playhouse of "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice", which won a stack of theater awards in Britain. The play will then move on to Singapore where it will be staged in the Raffles Hotel. Perhaps the next stop will be one of the many new hotels in India.
In contrast to oh-so-much of the rest of the world, the small but hi-tech country of Singapore is doing reasonably well in the WiFi stakes. And that makes us happy because, unlike other WiFi pioneers like Estonia, Singapore is a really useful hub where tons of travelers stop for a night or two, as well as being an interesting holiday destination in itself.
WiFi is rife in Singapore: a government plan has put thousands of WiFi spots across the city, which is of course relatively easy when your city (and country) are as small as Singapore is. The result is that there are also plenty of hotels that offer WiFi access, sometimes for free, although disappointingly not always in guest rooms.
At the Singapore Marriott Hotel, for example, which has recently been promoting itself as a destination for medical tourists, WiFi is available in the public areas and meeting rooms, but you have to settle for high-speed broadband in the guest rooms. We hate cables! The famous Raffles Hotel doesn't even bother to mention to prospective guests will have WiFi access or not: presumably we're just supposed to be dying to have a cocktail in the bar, like everybody wants to do at the Raffles.
One Singapore hotel that's not doing too badly is the Singapore Hilton, which offers free in-room WiFi access to guests in rooms from the Deluxe Rooms and above. Hopefully the rest of the Singapore hotels will be following suit--but if your hotel ends up being one without WiFi, just ask around and find out about all the other WiFi spots nearby, and you won't be long without a connection.
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
We're not quite sure if this is a Killer View or just a really interesting one: it's taken from a hotel room in the Conrad Centennial Hotel in Singapore.
What you're looking at is the Suntec roundabout in Singapore. It's special because from 2008, there'll be a Formula One auto race held in Singapore, and this roundabout will be a part of the Singapore Grand Prix. There's a plan to hold it a night, if they decide the lighting will be safe enough for competitors (and spectators); now you know at least one of the hotels you should book into for a F1 view.
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by ced138
